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Thursday, February 18, 2016

Tío Agapito and the Mexican Revolution

Agapito Ramírez, an
old great uncle, never married, but that didn’t stop him from leaving behind
several descendants. He fought in the
Mexican Revolution alongside Emiliano Zapata which made Tío Agapito very old
when I first met him. I don’t recall being in school yet so I must have been
four, maybe five.

Whenever we made the trip down to
south Texas, someone would drive out to Tío Agapito’s property (he never owned
a car or a phone) and let him know my dad was visiting the family. Tío Agapito
must have liked my dad because he often made the long ride out on his horse to
visit with him.

I had heard
so many stories about him from my dad that when he rode up on a horse at my
grandmother’s house, I wanted to get a really close look at him. We had been
sitting on my aunt’s front porch, but the women scurried inside and dragged me
off with them.

All I got to see was a tiny man
who reminded me of Yosemite Sam from the Saturday morning cartoons. He wore a holster with two guns strapped to
his legs and sported a huge, dark, handlebar moustache. He didn’t look mean
but, if the stories were true, he was dangerous.

During the Mexican Revolution in
the early 1900’s, there was no border between his property and his mother
country Mexico, so he joined their fight for freedom.

Tío Agapito often talked about
his battle experiences and Dad would share the less cruel tales with us - how
the winners would loot the dead bodies, how the men would execute the wounded
enemies, and how Tío Agapito often escaped death.

Every time he visited I got
hustled into the safety of the house with the women, but I would sneak away and
peek at him from behind a window curtain. He caught me once and winked at me.